he knob were to be fixed diamonds, sapphires,
emeralds, topazes, rubies, chosen out of the many he had had given him
by his rich lady-enthusiasts. On the morrow, he was released, after
spending, during the few days he had been locked up, five hundred and
seventy francs in refreshment for himself and visitors.

CHAPTER VII

LETTERS TO "THE STRANGER," 1835, 1836

The Rue des Batailles, whither Balzac removed his household goods in
1834, was one of those old landmarks of Paris which have disappeared
in the opening up and beautifying of the city. Commencing at the
fortifications, it penetrated inwards along the waste ground of the
Trocadero, and crossed the Rue Chaillot at a point which has since
become the Place d'Iena. Its direction from there was very nearly the
same as that of the present Avenue d'Iena. No. 12, where Balzac had
his flat, probably occupied the site whereon now stands the mansion of
Prince Roland Bonaparte. From its windows a good view was obtained of
the Seine, the Champ de Mars, the Ecole Militaire, and the Dome of the
Invalides.

As a matter of fact, the house of the Rue des Batailles was for a time
a supplementary dwelling rented by the novelist, so Werdet says, as a
hiding-place from the myrmidons of the law. The flat in the Rue
Cassini was retained, and its furniture also; and an arrangement was
made with the landlord by which a notice-board hung continually on the
door, with the words: "This apartment to let." In reality the tenant
often sojourned there still, and his cook stayed on the premises to
look after them, and serve her master with meals, whenever he wished
to work in his old study without being disturbed. At the Rue des
Batailles he lived under the pseudonym of Widow Brunet, so that
temporarily the sergeant-major of the National Guard was outwitted.

The second flat, when he took it, was composed of five small rooms;
but an army of workmen was summoned; and what with the pulling down of
partitions and their reconstruction on a more commodious plan, the
place was metamorphosed into four luxuriously furnished chambers, the
study being fitted up as a sort of boudoir. One of its walls was a
graceful curve against which rested a large, real Turkish divan in
white cashmere, its drapery being caught and held with lozenge-shaped
bows of black and flame-coloured silk. The opposite wall formed a
straight line broken only by a white marble chimney-